LISBON - Portugal's highest court cut the jail sentence on a convicted paedophile, causing outrage today in a country sensitive to the plight of children after the abduction of a 4-year-old British girl.
The Supreme Court accepted a plea by the paedophile that abusing a 13-year-old -- oneof his victims -- was not as serious as abusing a younger child.
"It is not the same to carry out the described acts ... with a child of 5, 6, or seven as it is with one of 13 years", the court ruled on its website.
It reduced his prison sentence from seven to five years.
The ruling took on added significance given the high-profile kidnapping three weeks ago of 4-year-old Madeleine McCann while she was on holiday with her family in the Algarve. She has not yet been found.
"At this time with the Madeleine case, this sends a terrible message," one viewer, Paulo Sousa, told SIC television.
"I am revolted, as if poor paedophiles don't deserve to be in prison," Maria Rodrigues, a sociologist, told the same programme.
Unicef said in a statement the case served as an opportunity to remind the "Portuguese state and all its institutions to fully apply" the United Nations convention on the rights of the child.
The court said in a statement that the decision had been reported in ways that could provoke lack of "comprehension by the public."
It said the decision was taken only in the one case and that in its deliberation it considered the age and development of the child. In Portugal, sexual abuse of children is applicable for children up to the age of 14, it said.
The offender had been charged with sexual abuse offences of minors over a period of several years.
